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So here's the deal with my floors. They are hardwood. Unlike SSS's, they are not freshly refinished. Oh no. The kitchen looks like it has been through a war. And the kids are always dropping food on the floor, and no, we don't have a dog to clean up after them (S. Baskind's suggestion). So I've been using a Swiffer WetJet and not loving it. I always felt the floor was still dirty and it had a weird residue on it. So on a whim, I picked up an omop and almond cleaner from Method and thought, what the hell. It can't be worse.

IT IS SO MUCH BETTER.

I mean, the house smells awesome. And the floor has a gleam to it that I don't ever remember seeing. OK, OK, it has that when the cleaning lady has been here. But that's what, every 3 months? And I wash the floor four times a week. That's a lot of washings to be disappointed.

I'm not mad at the WetJet. I'll still use it for the bathroom. But oh, the omop is divine.

We Did It! Or, Road Trip

We finally got the courage to take our kids out of town for a weekend to Todd and Sue-Yun Flyr's place in Liberty Township (near Cincinnati). This was a monumentally huge undertaking for us, since traveling with little kids is hard enough, but these little ones are still all in diapers, very much scheduled, and who knew if they would adapt to someone else's house, without their little beds, their kitty and their stuff? They did great. We got another Latt kids' table at the West Chester IKEA for the girls to use and did our thing like every other day. The girls loved the change and seemed to really enjoy the attention of other adults. They slept normally, napped normally, ate normally. We took them to a different playround, a toddler sprinkle pool, and the Cincinnati Zoo. After bedtime Saturday, we had the opportunity to enjoy Sue-Yun's incredible Korean barbecue on smuggled china and sit like grownups under the stars, smelling the citronella and the kimchi. But the stars looked just that much different from 5 hours south, and I was good with that.

Why was the weekend successful? Several reasons. We kept the girls' routine identical to home. Same bath/bed routine, same naps. We didn't set them up to fail by forcing them to radically alter their schedules to accomodate our desire to run around, or shop, or whatever. We may have had a little less time for IKEA, or didn't go out to eat, for example, but the kids were happy and we had no big behavior problems. Another reason the weekend was successful was Todd and Sue-Yun's understanding that our schedule didn't have to jive perfectly with theirs and that was just fine. They slept later. Fine. They stayed later at the pool and at the Zoo. Great. We had the freedom at their house to make decisions for our family that would work and Todd and Sue-Yun didn't take it personally that we couldn't do everything together, or that we had to do it differently. I would be less afraid to take the girls places if I knew other people or situations would be so flexible. I suspect that Mr. and Dr. Lowe would be accomodating, since her schedule has been insane as long as I've known her. But other people we know are simply not as understanding. Too bad. We had an awesome time with the Flyrs and can't wait to go back.

Rub a dub dub, three Ganns in a tub, or, Garage Sale

I had a garage sale on July 12 that yielded me $120 and a cleaner conscience because my junk is now safely esconced in someone else's house. The best part of set-up was the girls finding our old kitchen sink and playing "bathtub" with in. They seemed genuinely surprised that they didn't all fit. Helen kept pulling out the spray nozzle to "wash" herself. Clever, yes.

Emma loved the prefab garage sale stickers and ended up being on sale for about $87 and change. After the poop explosion last week, I might have taken $75.

Oh, No, She Didn't, or, RED ALERT!

So often I think of the story my neighbor Martina once told me about how she took her diaper off in her bed and smeared the contents on the wall, and the look of delight on her mother Hilda’s face when she found out what had happened. And I always laughed to myself, because it had never happened to me.

Until today.

The twins were in their room for nap. Bill and Ellie were working on a puzzle in our room. I was doing an ANOVA problem set for my statistics class. I heard the twins kind of wake up and get animated. I thought, I’ll let them go for a few minutes before I go get them.

A few minutes later the twins are really chatty, so I open the door and they sort of freeze.

The smell. Was. Unbelieveable.

I said to Helen, “Did you make a poopie?” And Pudge looked me square in the eye and said, “No. It was Emma.”

I took one look at Ittle and blanched. Emma had smeared poop everywhere. On her. On her bed. On her bedclothes. I was appalled. I almost couldn’t move. She saw the look on my face. I half whispered, half hissed, “Emma Ruth, what did you do?”

She said, “Oh Mommy, I love you.”

I will always have empathy for Hilda. Always.